Because you're not just Dr. Doctor anymore. Not just an under-the-radar state rep, dermatologist, deacon and dad.

You are governor, with every word you speak. You are top dog, commander-in-chief to 4.7 million Alabamians. When you tell them they're not your brothers or sisters if they don't believe as you do, you blast needless cracks in a state already lined with faults.

But I'm not -- Surprise! -- going to beat up the governor for his insensitive Monday sermon. Not this time.

Robert Bentley (The Birmingham News / Mark Almond)

Because I'm more concerned about the prepared inaugural address Bentley gave earlier Monday. Like so many politicians before him, he had to trot out that tired old states' rights line.

"I will defend our right to govern ourselves under our own laws and to make our own decisions without federal interference," he said.

It was just a line, something he says all the time. So why does it bother me?

Because it, too, was unnecessary, divisive and blind.

It was, after all, Martin Luther Day in Montgomery. It was the inaugural, the same event George Wallace used in 1963 to wave his "segregation forever" fist at the federal government.

On such a day, in such a place, Bentley's words burn like a bad memory. They force us to think of Wallace, and the words he aimed at the feds when he was sworn in: "We give the word of a race of honor that we will tolerate their boot in our face no longer."

I know Bentley did not intend to echo Wallace's venom. If he had, he never would've put Alvin Holmes on the inaugural program. He wouldn't have gone to Dexter Avenue Baptist to speak from King's pulpit.

But the message is too clear. When Southern politicians speak of states' rights, black people expect the worst.

For many Alabamians -- Bentley is governor to them, too -- "federal interference" has been an answer to prayers.

Without "federal interference," blacks and whites in Alabama could not dine together in restaurants, use the same libraries, attend the same schools or live in the same neighborhoods.

It is "federal interference" that returns more than $1.60 to Alabama for every dollar the state sends to Washington. It was "federal interference" that sent the state $650 million last year, allowing Alabama to put off cutting school budgets.

Without "federal interference" we would never have cleaned our air or water.

Without "federal interference" UAB would not be a research giant, NASA would not have brought jobs to Huntsville, and folks in the Tennessee Valley might still burn kerosene lamps at night.

The list of Alabama governors who have railed about "federal interference" is long. And it is tired.

The list of Alabama governors who have been real leaders, though, who have led this state forward, inspiring all with word and deed, is very short.